Glass formation range of Mg-based bulk metallic alloys

Abstract. New bulk metallic glasses (BMG) have been synthesized in the Mg-Cu-RE systems (RE = Y, Gd) with high critical diameter. In order to determine the glass forming range of these ternary systems, the calculation of the onset of driving forces (ODF) has been performed and has shown a large composition range for BMG formation. The synthesis of particular compositions in this domain has shown that all the produced alloys present a high glass forming ability (GFA) measured by DSC experiments. The ODF model, synthesized alloys by mould casting, characterization by X-ray diffraction and DSC techniques are presented. Bulk metallic glasses (BMG) exhibit particularly attractive mechanical properties like high stresses to fracture and large elastic strains. Mg-based BMG are of special interest since they can provide the possibility to obtain new light alloys for structural applications. For shaping by hot deformation, it is important to produce alloys with a large temperature range between the vitrous temperatur